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People often ask me why I choose to watch anything if I hate everything. Instead of explaining that I don’t really hate everything and challenging the logic of internet commentators; I generally say, in some way I like watching bad things. Before you say that’s what makes me a twisted masochistic freak, I have to argue with you on that point (it’s the bondage that does that).

You see the reason I like watching things that are bad is because, being a Satire Artist, stomping on the face of particularly shitastic shows has its own entertainment value to me. Watching something you hate, or watching something hang itself in its own genre is the fuel of Satire, and this is what really sets Satire apart from Parody, But more on that later.

Because of this ability to comically make fun of anything, this allows me to sit through some of most god-awful buckets of porter-john juice in one sitting. I have personally sat through Highlander: The Source, Batman and Robin, Failure to Launch, and an endless slew of Syfy miniseries without batting an eyelash. I watched Bustgunner: Abridged, Twat of Dangers: Pokemon Abridged, and Captainawesome’s Pokemon Abridged in relatively few sittings. Generally it only takes me two days to complete a series (and that’s factoring in a 12 hour work shift and a needy bottle of lotion).

All this said, I avoided Uraby210s: One Piece Abridged like it was a homeless polio victim

Who Happened to be on fucking fire.

I don’t know what it was about it. I mean, I’ve certainly watched a lot of bad movies, TV shows, Anime’s (I watched Sailor Moon, for God’s sake), but this… this was just unwatchable. But, before I get into that, I need a peddle a couple steps back, and take a look at the Original One Piece in my patented Background Breakdown.

One Piece: That Show That Was On Toonami About A Year After Everyone Stopped Caring (Shortened by 4Kids to One Piece for length and content) was about a pirate boy named Monkey D. Luffy who is on a quest to find the Legendary One Piece and become King of the Pirates. To do this he enlists the help of a Ranger, a Thief, and Zorro

Unfortunately Andre the Giant is nowhere to be found.

Holy shit! A Princess Bride more focused on pirates? Fucking sign me up! This sounds like the show of the fucking century!

It also doesn’t hurt that it has the most catchy Opening Theme of the century.

Fuck Yeah! I’m pumped! I rushed to watch it… and it fucking sucked. Oh wow did it suck goat testicles. It blew dog anus. It was bad, I mean really bad. It apparently circled around devil fruit (cursed fruit, if you watched the 4kids dub), which gave M.D. Luffy (Doctor of Asshattery) the powers of Mr. Fantastic. The animation was lame, the characters were stupid, and they somehow took a show with guy named Zoro, who fights with three swords, andmade it boring. How the fuck did they accomplish that? Let’s just say you certainly have to be trying!

And, what’s this? There’s over 480 episodes! Four Hundred and eighty! What the fuck? Fuck You Toei Animation! I’m not going to sit through another 450+ episodes of fucking filler! I had enough of that with Dragon Ball Z!

So… Again I’m stuck with the same dilemma as Pokemon. I think it would be hard to make a One Piece Abridged series, because it’s hard to like it enough to Parody. The show was just mindless, the action was dull, the characters were stupid, and the animation was just fucking insane.

For instance: What the fuck is that on the right?

So, at this point I was actually looking forward to an abridged series. Maybe a little fan input is what this series needed to actually make fucking sense. After all the original series set the bar so low, that at this point I was thinking that an abridged version could have very well been a dog on unicycle and I would have been vastly more entertained. Little did I know that Uraby210 was actually not satisfied with how bad the original series was, and modeled his series to far exceed the shittiness of its predecessor (and that, my friends, is impressive).

The first episode starts off with a kind of clever opening joke, parodying the opening to the original series. The original opening music is also featured, which is pretty fucking awesome. At this point the show seemed innocent enough and I was thinking that I was in for a… not so terrible experience.

Then the show started.

The show starts with a group of sailors finding a barrel floating in the ocean. Using Sailor Logic

Not featured.

They determine that it must be beer. This leads to a series of terribly written and very unconvincing dialogue. The jokes ramble on without rhyme or reason until something happens. A pirate, who’s voice is a mumbling fat man meets Elvis impersonation, only twice as hammed up, attacks the– I don’t know, is it a cruise vessel?–that the show started on. He sends his lackey, who within the first minute upon introduction reveals through monologue that he gets “… rectally violated every day of my pathetic life.”

Yes, that is the actual joke. Forget subtlety, forget reason, and considering the kid can’t be more than 10, forget all form of human decency as well! Instead just write an exposition of this poor kid’s childhood! After that joke I don’t think I remember much of what else was said. But if memory serves me correctly it’s just because out of all the bad, poorly acted, poorly edited jokes, this one just stuck out the most and that it was just because it was so unbelievably out of place. It lacked subtlety, decency, or even humor. It simply stated a horrible event

Don’t worry, if you didn’t like that unsubtle, unfunny joke, this abridged series focuses on one every fucking episode. From adult to infant cannibalism, to emotionless and tasteless gay and retard jokes, there is not one subject that this series doesn’t violently probe with all the tact courtesy of county inmate.

The second episode of this god awful starts a group of Marines who serves as vessels for the writers incessant need to pad all dialogue with the same homophobic jokes that are Frat Houses

Featured: One Piece Abridged Lead Writing Staff. (On another note: What the fuck is that on the right?)

And if their jokes weren’t bad enough in the first episode, we cut to Luffy, who’s opening jokes include “eating babies” and just calling the poor mentally scarred kid a faggot. Just that, calls him a faggot.

Seriously, when did just calling a horribly abused purple hair kid a faggot constitute a good and expectable joke?

Ok, Point Taken.

Maybe a little subtlety? A little reason why Elastoman has suddenly decided to go on an infant diet (as delicious and nutritious as it is) or just call everyone and thing a faggot? No, Uraby210 has just decided in lieu of being clever and innovative with his gay puns, he would just say the word “faggot,” showing all the comedic writing talent of a WoW Addict.

We move on in the plot after a couple more obnoxious gay jokes, where we run into Zoro who is voiced by—is that Father Jack Hackett? It is! What the fuck does Father Jack Hackett have anything to do with fucking One Piece? For those of you who don’t know, Father Jack Hackett is a character in Father Ted, a British cult comedy about a group of Catholic Priests. What initially bothered me was that rather than an impersonation of Father Jack Hackett, Uraby210 uses a soundboard comprised of every single line Father Jack Hackett ever spoke (and since there were like four of them, it’s not really hard)..

First of all, I’m going to ignore exactly how tacky and lazy having a main character voiced entirely by soundboard really comes off as, and just going to go for the meat here: What the fuck compelled Uraby210 to use Father Jack Hackett? What the hell does it have anything to do with what’s going on? Sure, he says “Drink!” a lot, and pirates love to drink, but if I had heard that a character called Zoro (who was a sword fighter who wore a bandana) was to be voice acted entirely by a soundboard from a B-Rate comedy, I think that this would have been a better choice:

So, in the second episode, this show has invented a new form of laziness yet seen in abridged series. You know one could understand using a soundboard for a bit character, but what in the name of Guru’s left ass cheek compelled them to use a soundboard for a main fucking support character? I know your series is done with the effort of a White Castle shit, Uraby210! You don’t have to rub it in my face!

Well, anyway, Zoro is apparently experiencing The Passion when Luffy and the broken and beaten Kid Trunks stumble upon him behind a high rise wall in a locked barracks. Luffy breaks into the Barracks, because apparently the soldiers were being “too gay” to stop him, as Uraby210 is constantly reminding us through this episode, and steals Zoro’s three swords. They are then confronted by Baron Ünderbheit, who wields a large axe hand, which he swings with all of the grace and expertise of me about three hours after the end Tequila night (just not nearly as funny).

They beat Iron Jaw, call a couple more people a faggot, Zoro screams “Drink!” in the most hackjob Hackett soundboard voice I’ve ever heard and the show ends…

Yes, they choke in a scene of Nami at the very end of episode two as she is stealing a map for fucked if I know. Nami is impressively voice acted by a female voice actor (a rarity amongst YouTube Abridged series)… a bad female voice actor, but at least Uraby210 didn’t try to pitch his voice to the sound of a powerdriill in a meatgrinder and go full circle on the whole androgynous man/women creatures that tends to populate anime.

Actually, come to think about it, none of the voice actors are all that good (Seriously, when the soundboard is out acting you, it is time give it a rest), sure they can do impressions, but ask them to inflect, emote, or even raise their voice and you’ll receive a sea of vacant gazes as they try to comprehend the idea of acting. It doesn’t help that Uraby210 constantly falls out of his “accents” (generally when trying to scream), the voices sounded unnaturally overlayed, and that the voice “actors” could have improved their timing with acting lessons by William Shatner. But no need to worry! Because if the voice acting isn’t enough to break your spirit, the writing will have you tongue kissing a cold barrel in three episodes.

The writing is amazingly uninventive, devoid of any substance or creativity, showing no want or care for a storyline, just yearning for excuse after excuse to make a god-awful reference or a joke that feels like it cuts itself at night. The jokes lack any rhyme or reason, the show consistently mistakes simply stating morbid actions for actual humor, and when that wears down the show just throws a random reference out of its hat, in the fleeting hope that they can cover up everything that’s bad about this show by telling you something good from another show.

Now remember who is talking here. In my Wasted Time ReReview of YGOTAS, I said the it would be completely forgivable to say that reference is the only valid form of humor. But in the case of this show the references rarely are even relevant to what is going on. Most of the references seem quite out of place, contrived and forced down our throats without so much as the courtesy to tell the watcher its name or buy them a drink

The reason I bring all of this up now, is because episode three takes all of these problems and more, and concentrates them in a thick liquid mass, that can only be defined as: “sewage.” This puree of processed Taco Bell farts is probably one of the worst episodes of anything I’ve ever seen (And I’ve suffered through the Desperate Housewives).

The show starts with a preachy diatribe about 4Kids being the epitome of all evil… and not a single joke to be found. Ok, Far beest me to knock anyone for a 4Kids knock (I made one earlier this article), but even a good joke seems to lack all tact when you’re pulling out the soap box and throwing the bible in the air. The show then goes on to try to make a joke (literally, the maker seemed to be under the impression of such because he literally said “now that that jokes out of the way.”) The show then jumps into a flashback of when Luffy is a child.

We go back to when Luffy is a young boy as he is asking his child idol Shanks if he could join his crew. Shanks is accompanied by Keith Richards and Doctor Robotnik’s cousin Eddie.

This entire scene is a perfect example of how the voice acting and editing in this series is pretty atrocious. The entire scene runs on with all of the editing plainly refusing to match up with anything that’s fucking going on. In many scenes these two are belly laughing in the scene, while the voice acting leads us to believe they were merely mildly amused.

Luffy is at one point given orange juice, that apparently has the fastest acting Peyote in the world (though oddly immune to the acid in the orange juice), as it has Luffy tripping balls within seconds. This whole scene kind of goes on like this, almost flaunting the fact that the writing is unappealing, the voice acting is uninspiring, and the editing could have been done better by a chimpanzee who has splooge in his eye (and you don’t want to know the details of how that happened).

The main antagonist of this flashback, who is kind of like if Dirty Harry took the “Snidely Whiplash” approach, bursts into the scene, abducts Luffy, and proceeds to mercilessly beat him… but not until after he convinces him to eat a devil fruit. While all of this sounds action packed and amusing, it surprisingly isn’t. The whole scene comes off as rushed, probably to make more time to say Sailor Logic. I know you want that on a T-Shirt Uraby210! But you might want to focus on a better joke!

We end up in the ocean, and if you think I’m cliff noting this, believe me Uraby210 does it as well, where Snidely Whiplash throws Luffy in the ocean, and is then eaten by a sea dragon. Luffy is then saved by Shanks, using the power of, and I’m not kidding, Japanese Music. You know in a good series, this might have been a clever joke, but here it just sounds pretentious. We wrap up with Shanks giving Luffy his hat… and that’s how he got his straw hat…

This episode was completely pointless! it didn’t enrich the story, nor did it give us any memorable humor. It was absolutely painful to watch, and I really and it was about this time that I knew exactly what sort of pain I was in for.

The show doesn’t really progress in any way from here. The show moves on and on through different situations, but the same issues that plagued this show from day one. The editing rarely matches any of the statements, which kind of gives fracture on the coveted credibility thing. Most of the jokes—I say jokes, I mean blatant morbid statements. The sad about all of this is: as far as morbid shock humor goes, it’s pretty blasé. It lacks subtlety or ingenuity and it’s just “I eat babies” and “I get rectally violated every day of my pathetic life.” For a series who hinges itself on the shock morbidity humor, there’s little in the way of shock in this mess… just morbidity.

The shows characters are unlikable and unappealing, the soundboard consistently out acts the other actors, the support cast is featured by one horrible reference after another, and the antagonists just don’t have any other purpose than to annoy the shit out of the audience. The antagonists include The Smoking Man (and believe me, that’s a funnier joke than anything they said about him), a guy who just really liked that one Monty Python Spanish Inquisition Sketch (and the one time a soundboard would have been appropriate, he doesn’t use it), and a bad Michael Jackson impersonation. The story is nowhere to be found and the writing sounds like Uraby210 opened up a forum thread on One Piece, and just copy and pasted every line from the opinions (I take that back, forum trolls are more witty).

All Seventeen episodes are utter pain. I’ve never had to force myself to watch anything like this before. It was almost as Uraby210 was attempting to make a satire of an abridged, and even then it wasn’t that good. The references were confusing, the jokes were excruciatingly bland and morbid (which I never thought I would ever get to use that sentence). It was just bad; audience insulting, waste of bandwidth bad. I couldn’t even make a lot of jokes about this, just a cautionary: Do not watch this until in the right state of mind.

Generally this is the point in which I would just sum everything up with a quick joke and March my way out of the door, to hopefully forget this entire experience. But this time I’m going to change the pace by personally asking Uraby210 to refund approximately four hours of my life back. Please include this in the form of WoW points and Playstation Cash.

Because I am finally doing an iPod review, I will show Marketing Genius to this world, by placing in bold the new Macintosh products set out launch this year. And all I request from Macintosh is that they send me gobs and gobs of money. I’m waiting…

Well, the new year is here, I after a full week am recovered from my New Years ritual of “drinking until I call ex girlfriends in the middle of the night,” and am ready to get back in the saddle, getting back to what I do every year around this time (ignore my iResolution and piss off people on the internet). I wanted to do another online series this week, but due to technical difficulties (New PS3) I was unable to actually sit down and watch a series. I had considered at this point on just making a silly excuse on why there was not going to be a new Wasted Time Review this week and going to play more Playstation, when I saw it.

Nestled in between my laptop and my mouse, with my iLighter and pack of cigarettes on it; strictly reserved for atrocious video waiting times, or more accurately atrocious videos: my iTouch. I use my iTouch a lot: I take it to work, to my girlfriend’s house, to my friend’s house, and I always keep it on hand when I am watching videos. This form of iPocket entertainment has become a good escape for the more boring parts of my day to day life.

So, besides being the ultimate fueler for ADD, and no doubt directly responsible for any increase in iRitalin sales lately: what could one say about this product? Sure it’s entertaining to have, but what would anyone want it? Well, it’s got apps of course! Wondrous Glorious Apps. But, before I get into this Marketing Pitch, let me do my no doubt tired out iBackgroundCheck, where I explore where this hunk of plastic and stainless steel came from.

Macintosh

Just 10 years ago, the idea of having a Mac was laughable. Windows 2000 was still big, Microsoft had the niche in the PC gaming and programming, while every other technological industry was lining up to put Bill Gates sweaty sack in their mouths. Steve Jobs, whose balls at this time were surprisingly dry, decided to get into the niche market of mp3 players; enter: the iPod.

The original iPod was boxy, frustrating to use, and offered little more to the industry than a video screen for watching movies, and a new medium known as a “podcast.” A podcast (in case you spent the last five years under a particularly large iRock) was, I believe, originally intended for announcements, but expanded into it’s own kind of radio, and station for new, independence musical, comedic, and news talent. This and the iPod Apps is, by my belief, by far the biggest contribution Steve Jobs (seriously, doesn’t that sound like something you’d pay $75 for in a back alley?) has ever done. I honestly like this format and what it’s turned into, but more on this later.

The worst part about this clunky heap of plastic and iPlexy glass (that is destined to be on the business end of a hammer 20% of the time), is it’s controls. The original iPod was frustrating as piss to use because of this

This seemingly innocent set of simply explained iControls here gives you the feeling that this is a simple device. It gives you the security of knowing that even the technologically naïve mind could definitely wrap their head around this. It does this of course to disguise the fact that it was designed by Satan and Stalin, drawn up by Hitler, comprised of broken promises and children’s iTears, and above all produced by the Stevejob.

These controls were horrid. In order to scroll you had move your thumb around the outer circle. To select you press the inner circle. Ok… straight forward… too bad the scrolling feature seemed to believe that is was stuck in an ice level on Mario, because given the slightest temptation is would click it’s merry way down to ZZ Top, when all you wanted was that Bob and Tom sketch where Donald Duck’s getting an iBlowjob. These quick buttons displayed sleekly on the wheel may look harmless and innocent but if you try to use anything but the menu, be prepared to be ramped into the highest level of pissed off you’ve ever been in your life.

The worst part about the original iPod was the test of endurance and iWit that was turning the fucker off. Yes, they made it so difficult to do the most basic function of the machine, that I believe it is amongst the qualifications in MENSA to be able to shut one off in front of one qualified witness. You had to flip it to hold, while holding menu, wait three seconds, flip it off hold, run the wheel counter clockwise, cuss at the son of a bitch for not doing it the first time, try again, stand on your head for 30 seconds, enroll into college, receive your Masters iDegree in micro technology, then go cut down the largest tree in the woods…

… with an iHerring.

But, all this said, I actually enjoyed having one. When you got in zen with the crappy controls (I call it “N64 Mode”) it actually was pretty nifty to have movies and music on the go. But when the hard drive failed (suspiciously a month after the warrantee expired), I realized what this was. This was a big consumer iMonster, bent on taking every free penny and nickel from its owners. Since I had more important things to blow my money on (like alcohol and weed) I didn’t want to give into anything that would obviously take over every bit of my life and slowly degenerate my health, like apple seemed to be bent on doing.

So I abandoned the iPod for years, and never thought twice about it. During this time, the iTouch was beginning to hit the shelves. A piece of technology that was revolutionary to anyone who hadn’t heard of a Palm Pilot. The afterbirth of this Stevejob was, of course, the iPhone. For the purposes of this review I will being referring to these two in tandem, for the iPhone is simply an iTouch with a WiFi connection and an overprice subscription to Skype.

I hadn’t really considered much about the massive orgy made to impress the New World Emperor: the Stevejob (and no, I’m not letting go of that joke). I, essentially, didn’t care about the PC vs Mac debate, because well, the PC was cheaper and that’s what I had to work with. So when I received an iTouch for Christmas a couple years ago, it felt like receiving one of those pamphlets that those people in really nice clothes, seemed damned and determined to have me throw away for them.

When I began to sort through it, I had this feeling that this was some sort of iBrainwasher, which might have been true, because I was enjoying the iFuck out of myself. This little thing was cool! The touch grid was compact, but had a fine touch tolerance so was wasn’t pressing three fucking things, when I just wanted to get the fucking search menu. It was intuitive to use, came stock with an accelerometer so you can watch movies, or play games on either side you turn it. The controls were mind-blastingly intuitive, it had a simple back button, and to turn it off all you have to fucking do is hold the button down, and slide a bar.

(Cue Hallelujah Chorus)

Ok, now that I’m done geeking out, I’m going to start talking about the actual features of the iTouch/Phone. At the bottom of the touch screen holds your four hot keyed essentials, Music, Videos, Safari and (of course) the App Store. The Music and Videos are what you visit when you want to– I don’t know– do what the thing was originally supposed to do: listen to the Doors and watch iPorn. The Safari is for when you wish to surf the internet (presumably because you’ve watched all the porn in your video section) and the last one is the Apps Store.

What kind of Apps do these people have? Well it turns out they have an App for fucking everything. There’s accounting apps, cheat code apps, flashlight apps, free audiobook apps (which is pretty fucking cool); there’s even an app that you can take a picture of your eye, and it can perform an eye exam! Fuck Off! You mean to tell me that I don’t need an optometrist, when all I need is an iDoctor?

All this said, I really like this feature. These apps really turn out some interesting innovations, especially (not surprisingly) in the gaming department. First, I need to point out, any handheld system that is willing to support an app of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and fucking Shining Force has won points in my book. But even some of the games that come exclusive on the iPod are great.

Pocket God is an entertaining iGame that is less about being an omnipotent and just god, and more about dicking around with your worshipers, and killing them for your amusement (so more like a real god). This game is just ridiculous. At any time in the primary island you can summon the wrath of the Tiki from Brady Bunch and they all fall in black dust onto the ground. My favorite method of killing my very loyal subject was either summoning King Kong, or Sharks With Lasers attached to their heads.

Another notable game was Galaxy on Fire II, A member of the sadly dying Space Dog fighting games. This game was immensely fun, and had surprisingly intuitive controls. The game is about a dogfighter marine Keith T. Maxwell, who copies his dialogue from James Bond, while being the blandest creature in this Universe. Keith is caught in a freak accident that flings him 60 some odd years into the future… Don’t ask me why… and find out that an enigmatic race called “the void” has invading the universe with wormholes from “who the fuck knows where” and want to destroy the galaxy because “who the fuck cares?” The next part of the game is a cleverly hidden tutorial until you’re off to fight pirates, while collecting their loot and mining

My first investment in this game was a tractor beam, because fuck the mining mini game (Killing people and taking their stuff was easier). Mining was an essential part of the game, at one point it is a fucking story mission where you have to mine crystals while void ships are carefully aiming their weapons straight up your iShithole. The mining part wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t a frustrating touchscreen event where the Stevejob seems to have interjected and forced the makers of the game to deep throat his touch screen interface until they gag out this piece of garbage. But beyond the obnoxious minigames and its repetitive missions, the game was pretty fun.

The game runs off of a fine difficulty curve, but seems to have the fetish of forcing you to grunge around for hours. The game’s dogfighting style never seems to lose its thrill and appeal, atleast until you install a shield. You see, in the future, all people but your character are idiots, and don’t understand the premise of a fucking shield!( Even when they’re offered in every goddamn station) The game is pretty challenging until you get this nifty gun called the RapidFireHeatSeakTargetUpAsshole Laser gun, which at this point the game is officially over, baring a couple hours of grunging.

The game ends with a love scene somehow forced out of these pictures and text boxes and a bra floating in the depths of space, in which I have to ask, where the fuck did this come from, and what did this sick fuck do?

In summation on the games section of this article: If you were to ask me about iTouch/Phone games my response is that they are far, far better than that its predecessors, the iPod games; and when asked about those games my response is to punch you in the iTesticles for reminding me of them. All and all, I like the App Store for the same reason I like podcasts. It gives time for new talent to get their name out there, and make a little money. While this most of the time ends up with some over processed iCorndog covered in shit and splooge, this sometime cranks out some pretty fun and entertaining apps. I personally like the trivia apps for particularly boring parties (like the ones I throw).

The next thing I’m going to mention is of course the podcasts. Podcasts can be downloaded at the iTunes store (conveniently located on the first screen of your iTouch, and impossible to erase). These range from video downloads, to pure audio, and have a variety of fucking everything. You can get audiobooks, stories, political updates, political talk radio, updates at fucking CERN, the first seven episodes of Dragon Ball Z: Abridged! I have a podcast meant to teach my Japanese, though all it seems to accomplish is bore me with dialogue that makes Dora the Explorer look edgy.

So I guess my opinion of the iPod is pretty clear: I like it. I would recommend an iTouch (if you have the money) and the iPhone (if you’ve had the lobotomy). The iPod has created two new mediums to promote and for good artists to get their start (which is always a plus in my book). It has fun and interesting apps (and believe me, I haven’t even scratched the surface), and besides the fact that it just feels like stepping in line to give Stevejob an iMouthhug, I still have fun with it, and I use it every chance I get. So I guess I will say that you will have fun with it, if it doesn’t make your iMouth sore.

I was going over my past reviews and found the only one of the TFS forum Wasted Time Reviews that is still accessible to the public (apparently Kaiser hasn’t forgiven me yet). Even I have to say it was bitter, over generalized, and really just made for less of the spirit and more for sake of the humor. If I didn’t know better I would have considered this a satire of critic satires; while the review contained a lot of jokes, it contained no substance and little in way of reviewing. Compared to my later articles you would think that this was somebody trying to parody me. Unfortunately that man you see, foaming at the mouth, was me a mere month and a half ago.

Well, I like to think I’ve grown in that time, become more mature (by which I mean, I make more dick jokes and antagonize fans), and improved my style. So, I thought in the Christmas spirit (fuck you, my toy), that I would try to rectify my mistake and waste a little bit more of my time on another one of my:

The Wasted Time ReReview: Box of Danger’s — Pokémon: The Abridged Series.

May God have mercy on my soul.

Well, it seems that this is going to be a very special Wasted Time ReReview, because this time I will be looking back on two very distinct and very separate series. One series is a half-way decent show that has subtle humor, decent voice acting, and an innovative storytelling. The other series is a master of abridged series that I would recommend for all… oh I can’t be that mean, it sucked goat testicles. It was horrible, awful. It lacked all taste, humor or decent traits. The two series I am talking about are of course: Box of Danger’s – Pokémon: The Abridged series.

But before I get into that, I have to make an obvious segue into my patented Proper Series Breakdown:

Pokémon: the 4Kids Cash Teat was the marketing wet dream that ran from the late 90s, and still runs to this day; with multiple games and even the trading cards still selling. If you, like me, were born in the mid to late 80s, you might have just missed this fad. The Nintendo Gameboy game was the first launched, and was the only decent part of the franchise. The game was about catching these creatures called Pokémon, and grunging through the most pointless story possible while forcing their newly attained pets to fight in violent, if not deadly battles.

#1 Pokémon Champion

This fairly decent game exploded all over the US. Practically overnight: giant yellow rats started being splattered all over the walls of gaming and toy stores, and the creature that is Pokémon began to infest nook and cranny of North America. This unbelievable fad spawned off video games, trading cards, plushies and it practically defined gigapets. Pokémon was a monster: the campiness of the show was a loose veil to hide that every cute or furry goddamn one of them were soulless, evil creatures, gnawing at your very soul so you’ll give them more. This was also a thin veil to keep you from discovering that what you’re feeding are the soulless, evil creatures that work at 4Kids Entertainment.

The franchise, like everything popular, queefed out a show in the late 90s; as expect, this show was terrible, it had little to no real plot, the characters were bland and uninteresting, and the morality was sketchy, at best. It followed Ash Ketchum, a 10 year old who leaves home to become a Pokémon Trainer, in apparently the most brain-dead (but curiously safe) alternate universe imaginable. The show centers around: basically the same premise of the game, which would be good if that game’s story wasn’t complete bullshit. Oh, and it has this pretense of friendship and love, but hey! Its 4Kids and they had to make cockfighting appealing to kids somehow.

Honestly, I don’t know what I can say about any attempt to abridge this franchise. It’s really hard to like it enough to parody, and even then you only have a certain amount of material to work with. Pokémon was bigger than Jesus, and everybody knows about it. This means that jokes can, and have all been done about this show, so really there’s not a lot original that can be said about it. So, I caution you to remember the material we are working with, and try to understand that we can’t expect a gem to be squeezed from this dried out clump of rat shit that even 4Kids got tired of nibbling off of nearly five fucking years ago.

Box of Danger’s – Pokémon: The Abridged Series was first advertised as an answer to Captainawesome’s Pokémon abridged.The series is your general cut/slash, serve with side of gravy abridged series. It has obscure references, it changes the story line, and god love it, and it certainly tries to be funny.

The first episode of Snapper of Danger’s – Pokémon: the Abridged Series begins with a pretty clever Pokémon game glitch gag, and then proceeds to rape the innocence of any poor sop who watches it. The very first spoken joke is an abortion joke from Ash’s mom, which I guess is supposed to set the frame of a resentful mother-son relationship. The abortion joke isn’t even clever or well spoken; it literally is “I can’t remember why I didn’t have you aborted.” That’s horrible! It lacks all subtlety and tact, while simultaneously making the series uncomfortable from the get-go. If you don’t like dark humor, well don’t fret, there are only a billion more unnervingly dark jokes in the horizon.

The show moves on with such clever jokes as “who the hell are you?” by Professor Oak, and… wait is that the game music? It is! Who the hell would subject innocent people to the music of the original game? Well, get used to it because Muff of Danger’s – Pokémon: the Abridged Series will grab you by the head and force you to gag on the soul crushing noise that is: the Pokémon gameboy soundtrack. The episode goes on to meet Pikachu who… fucking talks? Well… why not? It’s at least innovative.

But stop me if you’ve heard this one: it turns out that Pikachu is a… wise cracking asshole of course! As if we couldn’t see that joke five miles away… In Alaska… Through A Mountain… Let’s just say it was really predictable and go from there.

We are also introduced to Misty, who apparently just got done eating children (which is an image that will be leader heading in my nightmares for the next two weeks). The first episode will surprisingly bore you when it’s not disturbing the shit out of you. The voices are lazily done, to the extent that if I closed my eyes, I can’t tell the difference between Ash, Misty, or any girls in the show; the jokes are surprisingly mean spirited and the humor lacks anything resembling subtlety. Seriously! You can’t make every character just say what they want to do, or what they feel.

That Makes Me Angry!

The second episode is framed around the Pokécenter and begins with an on paper, funny idea for a joke. The rainbow joke was clever, but will never make you laugh. But, not to worry, clever, charming jokes are rare in this series, and are generally replaced with drawn out morbid scenes; like the one revolving around eating Pikachu when Ash is talking to Officer Jenny (who borrowed her voice from a middle aged Irishman).

We are introduced to our main villains in the second episode: Team Rocket. Jesse, who sounds a lot like every other fucking woman in this show, James whose sexual ambiguity will leave you guessing time and time again, and last, but certainly least, is Meowth, who if was voice acted with any less effort would be completely pulled out of the series with a kind adieu and a kick in the ass. Team Rocket is the dastardly people trying to steal Pikachu, and all other Pokémon! Oh well… it’s not like they’re pedophiles or something…

Oh wait! They are! Yes of course, MasterWGS has succumbed to the always funny tactic of outright calling his antagonists pedophiles… ha! Classic! The episode ends (thank god) with Goldeen being summoned from the pits of hell to take care of Team Rocket… by killing them

I think everyone knows where I’m going with this.

The third episode starts out with an unfortunate set-up for a lot of bad dick jokes (hey! that’s my thing!): Caterpie. Ash catches Caterpie with his oddly shaped EZ bake oven

Sweet, my brownies are done.

And then begins to “whip it out.” and If that’s not bad enough, Caterpie ends up prematurely ejaculating after raping Misty in the night (while apparently doing a bad job at it). Ok, I don’t care what the show is like, or how good it is. If that is your main joke, you have killed that episode. So moving on:

The show really goes about the same pace: We meet more unlikable characters; the story tells like a demented spoof of the original series, jokes lack timing or tact, while editing lacks rhyme or reason. The whole show drags on leaving the viewer confused and offended, but never wanting to talk about it again. Episode 9 is the first episode to change anything up… by pulling a prank. The episode is just a looped video of Pikachu looking over a rock, set to the Benny Hill theme. This makes no fucking sense. I know the point of a prank is to kind of mindfuck your audience, but the Benny Hill theme? The fucking Benny Hill theme? Why? It made no sense to what was going on. You use the Benny Hill theme in a Scooby Doo spoof in fast-forward! (dibs) Not in a looped video of fucking Pikachu!

Ok, that was cute… now where’s the real episode 9? …Wait a minute… so, instead of making episode 10 as episode 9, Clam of Danger decided to leave the retarded Benny Hill rat as episode 9? That would piss me off if it didn’t mean I get to watch one less episode of this Godawful series. Ok, so I’ll go with it, on to episode 10.

Episode 10 is the precipice of shittiness that is this show. If the first ten episodes of Spunk-pot of Danger’s – Pokémon: The Abridged Series was in fact a giant turd, then episode ten is the long wet fart at the end. It begins with this:

If anybody had read my original review, you know how much this makes my blood boil. It’s not that I don’t understand the temptation to do this, and far BB beest me to judge a person for wanting to backhand their particularly annoying fans. But when you decide to tell us that many people “brought on” this reaction, it robs what could be a funny joke of any meaning; by making it sound like the trolls hurt your feewings. The episode isn’t too bad, until they get to the… I don’t know (Poké Ski Resort?) …and meet a kid, who totally doesn’t represent a troll. So this guy, let’s call him Fanny McDoofus is pissing and moaning about the videos taking too long to come out. The scene then turns into a contest on which end can whine and cry the most; the Funpocket of Danger side of course wins, with a blatantly ripped off Little Kuriboh joke. This scene was also accompanied with the fleeing cries of all my respect for this show.

What a God-Awful waste of bandwidth. The first ten episodes were lazily done. They lacked subtlety in their jokes, the voice acting was annoying and repetitive, and it was surprisingly morbid. Now, understand, I love dark humor. But this… it had no context, no meaning; it was just mean and evil (kind of like my original review of it). So, I think I can say that it’s not going to get better than this…

What? PTAS is evolving!

PTAS has evolved into a MODERATELY DECENT SERIES.

I don’t know if episode 10 was, in fact, so bad that it literally lobotomized me, or why that Indian is watching me sleep lately, but it actually does get better! It seems that this series hit the point at which it certainly couldn’t have gotten worse, and built up from there. Watching episode 11 is like watching completely different series. Suddenly the editing has vastly improved, the voice acting is less annoying, and the show has suddenly gone back on its medication and stopped being so fucking morbid.

The characters, from episode 11 on, become somewhat likeable, but sustain that balance between dick and good guy so that you can tell the difference between them and the antagonists. Everything just starts clicking in all of the right ways and I found myself shocked that I was being entertained! About goddamn time!

Ok! There’s got to be something I can criticize! Ah! Takahata101! He’s in it! I can make a joke about him being the white, nerdy version of Denzel Washington! Wait… he’s not playing Nappa! He’s… doing something new! Christmas Miracles Do Happen! Yes, even though Takahata101 makes his appearance, he doesn’t dry the show, but rather adds original material, which certainly gains a thumbs up from me.

Sure, there are a couple more abridged series references (which I already mentioned in my last ReReview that it always comes off as tacky), the voice acting and editing definitely both need a little bit more work, and they make all of the characters a little too endearing now. A good example of this is the Sendoff for Butterfree.

Butterfree is one of the myriad of Demented Pokémon that inhabit the Trim of Danger universe. I don’t know what it is, but out of all of the twisted characters in this show, Butterfree is the most believable.

This is the true face of evil.

You actually have to watch the show in order to make any sense of why it makes so much fucking sense, but trust me; this character pulls off this radical change and turns this odd thought into something truly demented. Which makes his ending in the show that much shittier. Buff of Danger’s – Pokémon: the Abridged Series’ sendoff to Butterfree was exactly like the original show’s sendoff, which even by that shows standards was a shitty sending off. It seemed like an insult to have the last Butterfree appearance to be about love! I wouldn’t point this out if MasterWGS hadn’t proven to me before that he is pretty innovative about changing storylines.

If not a little morbid.

So… How do I feel about the show? Well, except for the times that it blatantly rips off other shows, Bajingo of Danger’s – Pokémon: the Abridged Series is pretty original. Having the Pokémon talk is an innovated device, and I didn’t even cover some of the really funny moments that happen later in the series. The series starts off like the first week of Altar Boy training, but in the end you become kind of liking it (like Stockholm’s I guess). The show really does get better after episode 10; in fact I would recommend it if you were to simply chop the episodes before 11 off of the series. The problem is, with such a weak set up, the series has a lot of work to do before It can become truly good.

I guess what I’m saying, is keep an eye on this show. Cooze of Danger’s – Pokémon: the Abridged Series is really growing in its own right, and certainly is gaining speed to break into its own mold. Yes, I judged this show wrong at first. This show has certainly grown from when I first watched it, and personally I am glad for it. It seems that all it took for this show to start being good was going the extra mile, taking a little more time, taking yourself a little less seriously, and just a little maturity (like, you know, pointing out that box is an innuendo for vagina 11 times)

Jack “A.C.” Shawhan is a satire writer, critic and servant of Valkyre for The Wasted Time. Self proclaimed: “Ruler of Eternia,” A.C. authors a weekly article imaginatively called: The Wasted Time Review, a critical review on the comedic idiot savants that we call internet publishers. Apart from picking every sordid detail out of what is splattered on the net and dangling perfection beyond the reach of all who wish to approach it, Jack “Aperio Contra” Shawhan is a writer with a long background in literary history and comedy.

To prove that I am an equal opportunities critic… and also because I have the distinct impression that if I don’t give the abridging community a break, they’ll send Takahata101 to Nappa me to death. I have decided to review something that is not an abridged series. So for now I am pulling my meat cleave off of Abridged Series and I am aiming it directly attheescapist’s: Doraleous and Associates.

The £scapist’s: Doraleous and Associates is a fantasy flash series circling around four main characters:

Doraleous – the leader of the group, which there is nothing funny I can really say about him, seeing as his role in the group seems to be: target practice for Loki (Bad Mythology reference).

Neebs – Neebs plays the role of the misanthropic Elven Ranger. A funny, if not irritating character, who seems damned and determined to make sure every five minute episode drags on with his constant bitching. This character does so much to hold every one back and screw Doraleous over, that it actually makes more sense to pretend that he’s secretly working for the other side (seriously, watch it with that in mind). This all, I guess, wouldn’t annoy me so much if he didn’t sound like he was taught debate by Dale Gribble right before Speech class with Boomhauer.

Mirdon – Murdock is basically like Merlin’s hobo cousin. He drinks, he bitches, and every once in great while he actually does something useful, like cast a spell. Murdock has so many things in common with Neebs, it’s almost like he’s the homeless guy Neebs paid off to help him sabotage Doraleous.

Drak – Drak is the Dwarven Warrior with the voice that seems specifically engineered to annoy the piss out of any critic who watches this show. Drak is by, all means a slightly reasonable (if not meek) character, and is less useless than his other two associates. To this character’s credit, the craven, whiney voice of the character makes a lot of sense to the story (And I’ll get to that Later).

There are of course two other associates who are unfortunately not featured in the intro, for they prove to be the least useless members of this party: Bruff and Sir Walken. Bruff is the most experienced warrior in the party. His gruff demeanor and thankfully few dialogue lines, make it even funnier when you notice that he speaks only action movie lines. Sir Walken is by far the most useful character as he is the one getting the jobs. He is, as expected, voiced acted with a Christopher Walken impersonation. When at first I heard this, I thought they were trying too hard to be funny. Christopher Walken is only funny because he’s fucking Christopher Walken. There is literally no other way to say it. Don’t get me wrong, if I could I would have Christopher Walken redub every abridged series. I would replace every actor in every fucking movie with Christopher Walken. If the world ended I would want it to be me, Christopher Walken, and a scientist who could figure out how to infuse our genes together to repopulate the human race (which is totally not gay).

All that said: a Christopher Walken impersonation seems about as in place as… well Christopher Walken…

Christopher Walken on a lovely stroll.

So I guess it wasn’t really a bad call, and this character certainly is one of the funniest of the show… but still, it’s only about half as funny as it would have been with the real Christopher Walken. So we’re stuck with a cheap rip-off right from the beginning, which kind of sets the frame of the show.

When I was first introduced to the €scapist’s: Doraleous and Associates, I had thought that what I had stumbled upon was simply the bastard nine month byproduct of the Comedy Central Hazing of Krod Mandoon, which included: “30 minutes alone with Trey Parker.”

All of the characters face the screen… in every shot. Making the movement look as realistic as a 2D scroller, and making all battle scenes as action packed as anything you could play on Newgrounds. But I guess I can’t really complain about visuals or action when it comes to a flash games webisodes, and it would be little prickish of me to ask for the most ball blasting 5 minutes of action I’ve ever seen in my life (That’s Already Happened).

The show starts out with the newly formed associates standing outside of the new headquarters of Doraleous and Associates; the Mercenary Company in which the show gets its name sake. This is literally the least exciting pilot I have ever seen. It starts out with the commemoration party for the opening of the new business… which is held outside because stop asking questions. The show then becomes a bitch fest, which comes off as more annoying than it is funny. Every sentence is stretched out because everybody, obviously because they get paid by the number of words they say, has to comment on what another person said.

Somebody finally mentions something useful about a magical blade, the bitch fest slowly comes to a low roar, and they pull up their map to quick travel to the Lady of the Lake.

Yeah… totally not overused…

Well, this lady of the lake does have an interesting twist. She seems to have gotten bored with her omnipotence, and has decided to fuck with the beings inhabiting the world of Nudonia (Seriously), as well as the beings that inhabit the escapist website. The scene with the lady is actually kind of funny, but like the rest of the show, drags on to the point in which it just becomes grating. She offers Doraleous false Excaliburs Zephyr Blades, which would have made sense if they looked anything like anything that can be called the “Zephyr Blade.”

The Lady of the Lake finally hands him a tree branch, which ***SPOILER ALERT*** is the real fucking Zephyr Blade, which makes absolutely no sense and is not funny at all, just really really stupid. So, finally they decide to leave and end of the first episode.

The second episode revolves around the first meeting in the war room, which lead me to believe that this show was comprised completely of all of the scenes in all of the fantasy TV shows, which were too dull to actually be in them. The first meeting revolves completely around the fact that they have done pretty dick so far. A dead cat, that Mirdon is trying bring back to life, is featured throughout the episode. I don’t know why, because it’s not really all that funny.

To this episodes credit, this did make me smile.

The meeting goes on between the dead cat bits, featuring more whining and complaining, as if you weren’t already sick of it the first episode. In the end Sir Walken appears, bringing along the first adventure, after dicking around for two episodes (I guess). Walken informs Doraleous that the imaginatively named King Calas is about to destroy the Wetalds, an obvious set up for a retard joke (but to be honest, I’d do the same thing).

So they adventure off into the next episode, in which they confront a Rumpelstiltskin puzzle conducted by a troll with a bridge. They of course go on to solve the puzzle… by quibbling amongst themselves, because all the problems in life are solved by bitching. It was at this point that I made a startling realization, which is going to reveal exactly how big of a nerd I am: This plays like a session of Dungeons and Dragons.

If you’ve never played D&D, then just skip over the next couple paragraphs and pretend I just made a couple dick jokes or something. But for those of you who have Dungeon Crawled, notice Draks annoying whiny voice, and weak social demeanor? Dwarven Barbarians are generally played by new members, and come off as meek and quiet in the world. The quibbling in the show that drives it back? How many D&D campaigns does that happen with? How about just odd things happening with the world, the worlds oddly dry sense of humor, it sounds exactly like it came from the mind of a DM.

It gets to the point that sometimes I expect the camera to pan out, and it is revealed the Doraleous is a 30 year old drop out with a bad haircut, Neebs is 300 pounds with Doritos in one hand and an inhaler in the other, Mirdon is 95 pounds soaking wet and wears a cape, and Drak is the guy that was “too high” to play football.

And this man asks what they do next.

Ok, so moving on, they finally get passed the pointless troll part, where they find themselves in the Kingdom of the Wetalds, where they meet Snidely Whiplash, cleverly disguised as an arch duke.

Because I don’t want to give away the next two episodes, as they are pretty funny, I’ll just say they end up preventing King Calas from taking over the Wetalds, by giving a simple stakes challenge (battle to the death). But of course, because he is the most honest villain on the planet, he just leaves… Instead of using his quite obviously superior force to kill them, or something.

After the battle of Wetald; Doraleous and his Associates go to Mightopolis (yes, that’s the real name), to establish their name and pick up supplies. Neebs runs into an old friend who is in the stockade for stealing a sweater from Freddy Krueger. He then proceeds to break him out of the stockade, and bring him with, the bar still attached to his head, to coerce the guards into letting them see the king; this of course gets them thrown into prison.

The next episode starts with Doraleous, Neebs, and Krueger’s nephew chained up in the dungeon, singing the most obnoxious passing time song in the world. Doraleous is of course not singing, as he is the only man in the dungeon who seems to have kept his sanity. We then are introduced to a scraggly old man, who serves as this week’s plot device. When asked why he is in chains, the obviously insane inmate states, “Because the king is afraid of me.” At this point I turned to my friend and said, “He’s going to break out of those chains and kill somebody.” About a minute later I was proven correct (not to say it wasn’t still entertaining), thus reconfirming that I have the very useless talent of predicting obnoxious jokes. The crazy old man, after killing a guard, and before making a hole like Bugs Bunny to escape, tells Doraleous to remember the number 4. They are then saved by Sir Walken Plot Fix (As is his proper name).

The next episode they are confronted with the most predictable fantasy satire joke in history

Oh if only…

Interpreting this, of course, as a gift: Doraleous orders his team to move it into the castle (which of course they interpret as “fuck off until the party”), as he goes to get party supplies to celebrate their first mission. On this journey, Doraleous and Sir Walken stumble across a Wizard Kid named Harry Pooter, which is honestly pretty clever. Harry’s complete role in the series is to inform Doraleous that ***SPOILER ALERT*** the tree branch was the real Zephyr Blade, which makes no fucking sense. Honestly, where they high?

The most powerful substance in the world… apparently.

Really the next ten or so episodes pretty much has the same bitch, kvetch, predictable joke, argue, antagonize, go on mission, rinse, wash, and repeat pattern. Though, some of these end up being entertaining, like on episode 12 Yahtzee shows up to do… exactly what I’m doing now, which galvanizes this article as a giant waste of my time.

It wasn’t until about episode 16 where it really got interesting again. Before I go on, I want to play a game with the people at home. Think about every adventure game you’ve played in the last five years that includes anything having to do with fantasy. Now ask yourself what you think that this series is going to do next. If you answered: Doraleous Fights In a Tournament to His Death, congratulations, you now have that very useless talent of predicting obnoxious jokes, too.

We find Doraleous has been thrown into a gladiator’s tournament, because Neebs needed the money; which only adds to my suspicion that he’s really a very clever double agent for Calas. So Doraleous finds himself teamed up with

Leslie.

Leslie is part of the two episodes I mentioned earlier, and instead of reviewing, forced you to watch it. Leslie is one of the funnier characters in the show, but he suffers from the same affliction as Drak, as he has a voice that makes me want to take a drill gun to my eardrum. When I went to play the episode I was transported to the dead zone, where I found that they would be facing an unbelievably drawn monster. Doraleous would then bring the fucker most of the way to death, where Leslie will come in at the end to beat it down. Leslie will be declared the hero, and turn in to Russell Crowe. The scene went off roughly as I had expected.

But to this series’ credit, this was pretty badass.

The next episode is a dragged out foreshadowing of a future villain. So when exactly does this villain come in? How is he relevant? Well… fucked if I know. I guess they had to put some more scenes of them with their thumbs up their asses and arguing with every line of dialogue. But quite frankly, this episode and everything before and after is completely made up by Episode 18: No Horse For Walken.

No Horse For Walken starts out with the only funny rant in the entire series. Walken is complaining about the fact that the team did not steal a horse for him, in the episode of the Pyramites that I intentionally skipped in this review. Walken, riding bitch behind Neebs, logically explains why he is the one who deserves a horse. They stumble upon the old man from the dungeon (way back in episode 7), who is apparently having a stare-down with a frog.

The old man asks about the number 4 again, which of course Doraleous is as clueless as the rest of us. The old man then backs off from hypnotoad, warns the others that it is that it is time to run, at which point he does so. Instead of thinking about why the guy who tore a dungeon guard to pieces with his bare hands decided to flee, they decide that this is a good place to rest.

During the night, they discover what the old man was really staring at. Drak gets close to the frog that the old man was staring as when ***SPOILER ALERT*** this happens:

At which point all of the audio was replaced with the sound of my cackling and my soul burning in hell.

The end of this episode was a funeral for Drak, which was held by Sir Walken (who finally got his horse).

The rest of season is a build up to a “very powerful” Magical Boss, and Drak’s place is given to a new training: Ladder Guy, Whose only power seemed to be to somehow make me Miss Drak. All of this leads to fairly disappointing fight scene, with another rushed rushed action sequence. Oh yeah! and the best part is: Ladder Guy gets fired.

Season One of the εscapist’s Doraleous and Associates was… interesting to say the least. There were definitely parts in which it made me laugh, but most of the time it was just incessant bitching. Not even topical bitch, very rarely even funny rants, just quibbling like a bunch of school girls. The action was decent for a flash video, but there was far too little of it to judge on. The humor and references were hit and miss at best; the voice acting wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. The jokes seemed poorly timed and come off as convoluted as everybody seems to talk at once. The ξscapist’s Doraleous and Associates tried every single second to make me laugh, but didn’t give me much time to digest it. Many of the Jokes I only got two days later, because the show couldn’t go a single fucking second without a stupid ass line of dialogue. The show has no contrast, no real creativity, and worst of all: it will make the common man feel like an Oracle because it’s so goddamn predictable.

But, on the other hand, the Ξscapist’s Doraleous and Associates is fairly entertaining, the story isn’t half bad, just too convoluted to make any sense of. The parts that are funny are definitely worth the part’s that aren’t (and that is saying something). The editing and “cinematography” is done very well, even though the entire animation looks like my three year old niece drew it. Even the most unlikeable characters have some good moments, and when seen through the right perspective, it has a certain charm.

The fact is, if you like MMORPGs, if you’ve ever played an RPG in a chat room, or if you’re an old school D&D nerd, then you can honestly do a lot worst then watching the ωscapist’s Doraleous and Associates.And if you aren’t into any of those things, then stop playing keep away with my inhaler, and give me my lunch money back.

Jack “A.C.” Shawhan is a satire writer, critic and Dungeon Master for The Wasted Time. Self proclaimed: “Jester for the monarchs of the “Who the Hell Cares?” Empire,” A.C. authors a weekly article imaginatively called: The Wasted Time Review, a critical review on the comedic idiot savants that we call internet publishers. Apart from picking every sordid detail out of what is splattered on the net and dangling perfection beyond the reach of all who wish to approach it, Jack “Aperio Contra” Shawhan is a writer with a long background in literary history and comedy.

Ok, so it seems that everybody is a little confused with how I felt about YGOTAS. Some people thought that I thought it was “too” gimmicky, some people thought I gave a bad review, some people thought that the punishment for this was castration. Now, thinking castration is a little harsh, and knowing that there is no good argument I could make to these people that would persuade these people away from their very solid defense

I have decided to roll up my sleeves, pull out my disapproving sneer, and Waste a little more of my time in

The Wasted Time ReReview: Yu Gi Oh!: The Abridged Series

Editor’s Note: It seems that my last review was received poorly because of my use of “big words,” like gimmicky. For your convenience I have placed in bold the words that may confuse yo, and given definitions at the bottom.

Yu Gi Oh! (Or “Game King,” depending on how much you got beat up in highschool) Was a Marketing campaign ran by 4Kids Entertainment from the beginning of the Aughts to just a couple years ago. This was advertized a trading card game, to presumably keep their fan base from convulsing into seizures if a new Pokémon product wasn’t released every couple months.

And sometimes even when it was.

As for the story of Yu Gi Oh!: The 30 Minute Card Commercial… Uh… Well it had something to do with a Card Game, Egypt, and a Pedophile Phaoroh. I don’t know, but all I know is just trying to recall it just now I had a sudden urge to go to the mall and buy a Yu Gi Oh! Starter Pack! Just 24.99!NOW ICAN PLAY YU GI OH!WITH ALL OF MY FRIEND!

Yu Gi Oh! Was most featured in high school lunch rooms as far away from anything that could consider itself a girl as you could physically get, before forming a Trekkie Convention… In Space.

Now, I didn’t really play the Yu Gi Oh! Card Game, sure I had the mandatory stack of Yu Gi Oh! Cards, but I didn’t have the concentration of desire to continue, so I abandoned all hopes and dreams of being a Duel Master, and went on to something less nerdy..

Like Dungeons and Dragons.

Not to say that Card Games are bad, I guess Yu Gi Oh is fine, if you’re into that kind of thing, but personally I’d rather save the time I’d spend programming a 16 digit algorithm, and paying two translators and an accountant to figure out the fucking rules (Doubly applies to Magic).

Yu Gi Oh!: The Abridged Series is the unique parody of the aforementioned Yu Gi Oh!: the 4Kids Franchise. YGOTAS is impressively written, edited, and virtually completely voice acted by Martin Billany, or otherwise known as Little Kuriboh. So, LB gets big points in the beginning for not letting anybody dick around in his work, doing every job while still managing to be good and having the least amount of life possible without learning Klingon.

Before I go on I would be remiss without mentioning that I am treading in very dangerous territory here. Little Kuriboh is without a doubt themost popular abridger in the internet universe. So, whenever a person so much as thinks about lumbering forth with a critical analyses, we activats his trap card

which summons fanboys to destroy your generalized and opinionated articles until you use your Article Reborn card. Fortunately, I have my Lance of a Thousand Dick and Fart Jokes Summoned, which has the spell effect of making aforementioned fanboys more pissed off (Ok, I’ll Stop the Card Jokes).

Now in my first review of YGOTAS, I mentioned that it at first appeared gimmicky, which I still stand by. But what people didn’t seem to get is the fact (which I mentioned) that being gimmicky isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being gimmicky just means that you rely heavily on your own unique gags, which generally means that humor comes out self centered without any real substance (See Just Shoot Me, for details). But this is not always the case.

Little Kuriboh has made 50 episodes and a movie (+1 episode of Season 0) off of the Yu Gi Oh!: the 4kids Marketing Scheme to this date. All in which features original humor, perfect timing, well thought out references, and yes, gimmicks. Lots and lots of glorious gimmicks!

But… they work well together.

Not only do they work well together, but they work well separately. Each gimmick (including the [Adult Swim tagline at the end], Tristan’s Voice, and “Children’s Card Games”) work well and are legitimately funny in the end. Yeah The Adult Swim tagline is a tad unoriginal, and Tristan’s voice comes off as nerve wracking in the beginning, but neither of these are egregious or obnoxious enough to even lay a dent on this series.

And oh, the references! Don’t get me started on the references!

But A.C.! You flame shows that are unoriginal and use references, how is this guy different?

Thank you, random sentence, I’ll explain. The fact is I do hate when abridgers make references… to other abridged series. This comes off as tacky and unoriginal, that would be like me referencing Maddox, or Yahtzee. Neither party benefits, plus it would make me look like a retard who can’t come up with own jokes (not a far stretch, mind you, but still).

But referential humor is a valid form of comedy; in fact one wouldn’t be completely trespassing if they said that it is the only valid form of comedy. All humor is referential, if we had no common reference, what would make it funny to other people? I think about that every time I hear the tired out airplane routine: it’s funny because you’ve been on airplanes or at least can imagine what an airplane is like (hint: it’s really really cramped, you are breathing everyone’s germs, and yes you will die on an airplane if you step onto it).

You nervous about that 6:30 flight yet?

Referenced work in this series includes, though is not limited to Superman: Returns, The Princess Bride, and the absolute best Pulp Fiction reference in the history of ever.

Er… Maybe it was this one…

Ok, I will admit: Little Kuriboh does at multiple points commit the abominable sin of referencing another abridged series and borrowing off of their humor. And quite frankly, these are the very few times that the show lost points in my book. As I said before, it comes off as just sailing the tide if you borrow from your own Genre. While some of these are funny (Such as when he mentions he’s about half as popular as TFS); other, more direct, references simply gnawed at my soul. At one point Takahata101 appears as, you guessed it, Ghost Nappa. While it was… somewhat appropriate, it still had the stink of unoriginality. However, when taken as a whole, the series itself quite makes up for it with all that is original about it, and that has to mean something.

I could go on about how it’s editing is sub-par, or I could drag out the fact that it’s a little grainy and the episodes seem a little unfocused at times, but nothing really makes it a bad series. I highly recommend the series to anyone who wants to get into it. It’s genuinely funny and original, yeah it has one NTAS reference which I haven’t mentioned before, but it was more of a backhand then a rip-off (+500 LP to anyone willing to do that [Aw damn, lied about the whole no making card jokes I guess]). YGOTAS might be running on its last leg at this point but all in all it’s great, and I look forward to watching it again soon.

Now is everybody clear on what I think of this series? Or was I too opinionated/general/critical again?

Jack “A.C.” Shawhan is a satire artist and self-proclaimed “Lord of all existence.” He is the founder and head writer of the Wasted Time, which is pretty much as big of an accomplishment as taking the world’s second largest turd, but he takes it anyway. Every week he features the Wasted Time review, a satire critique meant present the parts of the internet that are good, and to the parts of the internet that aren’t he kicks them square in the nuts.

Opinionated: adj. Holding their opinion as better than others; being ultimately critical; being a critic; criticizing. an articulate and opinionated critic (this is the ACTUAL Merriam Webster example).

Gimmicky: adj.The utilization of gimmicks and gags, while ignoring other content in the show. YGOTAS was never “too” Gimmicky.

Unique: adj. Having its own special qualities. Being special, in the “I wear a helmet way.” Most people who bitched about my site were… Unique individuals.

But this is not always the case: Statement. To be juxtaposed to the norm. To be an exception to a stated rule. Homosexuality is common amongst fan boys, But this is not always the case, it is with you, Jonathan, but not always.

Gimmick: noun. A gag in a show that makes the show unique, and easily repeated and drilled into every one’s head. These examples are kind of like a gimmick.

When you first came up to me with your soft shoulders and callow writing styles I had no idea that I was speaking to the bravest man in the entire abridged fanboy universe. I had thought this was another kid that seemed to miss the point, and just needed a little correcting. But no… you, SamTheG(r)eek, you yourself braved the mighty A.C. You spelunked your way into the depths of the Wasted Time Lair and took on the Jabberwocky himself!

Aperio Contra in the eyes of fanboys

… and was taken out hastily with my loosely veiled Dick Joke attack (hotkeyed of f8). But you, you alone braved to actually post on my site with your valid criticisms and solid logic. And though I may seem mean to you, I can say I now respect you more than any man on the internet. So I apologize for all of the mean things I said about you (especially behind your back).

Recently, I noticed I was getting a fair number of hits and I tried to figure out what was going on. I found that Paradox had posted a link to my site on the boxofdanger forum… And he was endorsing it… Well, I was taken aback! Last time he had posted to me, I had got the distinct impression that he wanted me to “get fucked,” (paraph.) and I would never hear from him again! Not that I’m complaining of course; it was like a soothing massage to an already overinflated ego.

I scrolled down and I had found that, holy shit, some people were paying attention to this blog of half-minded rants! I went through many o’ comments and criticism with the most constructive of attitude that all good critics have (you know… the one where everyone but them are idiots?). Some people made good, albeit inconsistent criticisms, some were funny (like the castration bit), and some were damn-right disturbing (like, again, the castration bit).

So after the initial shock, I looked through the comments and picked out the criticisms (that can call themselves criticisms with a straight face), and I decided to answer them.

I have not functionally edited any of these posts to make my readers look stupid. For readability sake, I have posted my “fan mail,” in bold, and my responses will stay in the soothing plain black.

HonoraryMember writes… you think this guy is funny? Really?

Anyways, while I agree with some of his opinions — that LK’s Yugioh is good, but has been a bit stale recently — it’d be nice if his reviews actually had analysis rather than overly generalized statements.

“LK is too gimmicky.”
Maybe. What does the term “gimmicky” mean, specifically? And can you give me specific examples of gimmicks in his show?

“Gimmicky is bad when overdone. Unless you’re someone like Mel Brooks. Then it’s okay, cause he’s a gimmick king.”
Wait… so someone who is funny with gimmicks even in the long run is a gimmick king. Ok, but what do they do that makes them stay funny? I mean, besides the fact that they stay funny even in the long run, how can we separate a gimmick king from a regular schmo? Cause otherwise it’s just circular logic that means nothing. Or just a made up term in order to excuse your giving a pass to some comedians you like while condemning the rest.

This guy watches something and gives his opinions, but his analysis is way too generalized. It’s almost as if he saw only a few episodes of the show, and because he based his entire opinion off of that, can’t give us better analysis. And that’s not right. Also, his analysis is a bit shallow. By that I mean he has no good insights. He said nothing we couldn’t tell by watching it ourselves. A good critic will bring up a point that one hadn’t realized or thought of himself (or herself). And this guy didn’t do any of that.

Like I said, we need a good abridged critic. But this guy is SO NOT IT.

Ok, my faith in humanity isn’t completely destroyed; first one off the list shows some good arguments and valid criticisms. I will answer them in order:

It’d be nice if his reviews actually had analysis rather than overly generalized statements.

Ok, first of all, if you hadn’t noticed I don’t really go over much if I don’t have a lot to criticize. But, as featured in my Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged and Bustgunner Abridged reviews, I actually generally go over the parts that I didn’t like and showed them all pink and naked. The problem is that without criticism I’m like a bird with clipped wings. Sure you can get me to squawk “It’s Good!” but don’t expect me to fly around the room doing tricks. The fact is that it’s difficult to come up with material on what a series did well, without outright quoting it:

“So, you remember that time when Tristen Said “Holy #@%^ on a #@%^ sandwich!” that was funny right?” doesn’t seem to roll off the tongue and onto the paper as well as you would think… The thing is, when it comes to comedy, it’s really the lines and things that happen that make it good and funny. The only good things I can say is that it is funny and well presented… which I did. I thought I couldn’t be clear enough.

“LK is too gimmicky.”

First, I struggle to find the point in which I stated that YGOTAS is “too gimmicky.” Yes I mentioned it was gimmicky, but every time I did I made sure to also mention the fact that gimmicks are not necessarily bad. Every run-on joke you’ve ever seen is a gimmick, and I would bet money that every person reading this has quoted a run-on joke amongst your friends (for those that have real friends).

The thing is: I had tried something new here and gave my first impression of a time long long ago before I became a cynical critic. When I first clicked on the yugiohabridged.com I was bright eyed about this new potential of comedy, fresh from Teamfourstar’s Dragon Ball Z Abridged, and excited to explore this new land. When I first logged on to Yu Gi Oh!: The Abridged Series, I noticed the “gimmicks” and prejudged the show, skip ahead to the moral of the story, my first impressions were wrong. I don’t think I could have been clearer if I graphically depicted a love affair with his YouTube account.

What does the term “gimmicky” mean, specifically?

Well, it depends on who you ask, but a gimmick is kind of like a shtick, but with more gags. You know like a spoof, but done in a routine, more or less, that clear enough? Good.

Alright Alright, seriously, a gimmick is a special joke that gives unique quality to a series. In the context in which I put it (because English is awesome), it meant that it had many jokes that would be novel and genuinely funny at first, until it was driven down your throat (by using it every episode) because fans are pretentious and annoying, and only write hate blogs when you don’t entertain them! (And now I pause to look over to my site), yeah, kind of like that.

Being “gimmicky” means you rely so heavily on your gimmicks that it robs the show (or what have you), of any substance. But as I went over, fairly specifically I might add, while YGOTAS came off as gimmicky, the gimmicks worked well and it still was funny.

People who watch a lot of comedy are particularly avoidant of gimmick humor (for the reasons that I actually spent two paragraphs over viewing), because gimmicks more often than not run dry, and quickly at that. If you’ve ever watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother, or Two and a Half Men, you now know what happens gimmicks go wild (and my condolences are with you).

Examples of gimmicks are “That’s Superspecial Awesome!”, “Children’s Card Games,” and god help me, “In America.” What gave me the impression that the series would be gimmicky was the fact that two of these gimmicks appeared in the first goddamn episode. When I fast forwarded to later episodes (as I mentioned in the articles) I confirmed my suspicion, and walked on.

As I have already mentioned before (and as was the moral of my particular story) that first impressions can be bullshit, and gimmicks can stay good; As long as the person doing them is good at gimmicks, which brings me to.

Again, I’m trying to figure out where I said this particular quote, because it seems halfway thought out. Maybe you meant:

“Now, Aperio!” You might say, “How come you’re bashing gimmicky people on the article you are dedicating to Leslie Nielson?” This is true, Leslie Nielson was nothing if he wasn’t gimmicky, but Leslie Nielson belonged to a special club for special people known as the Gimmick Kings. This group include Grouncho Marx, The Three Stooges, and of course Mel Brooks.”

This segue, to point out that gimmicky humor can be used well, was my way of leading into how good I thought the show was. Which was pointed out later when I actually admit I thought the show was really good, by making an analogy of my scandalous affair with Little Kuriboh’s YouTube account (unless you missed it the first time). I was using these elites as examples so maybe people might actually get what I mean by, “Gimmick King.”

This obviously failed, as shown of your next “point”:

I mean, besides the fact that they stay funny even in the long run, how can we separate a gimmick king from a regular schmo?

This is honestly a good question. I guess my initial answer is to Sam Fisher a pie into his face, and see if the reaction is comical. If it is, it’s a good start, if it’s not… well you might be in jail… say hello Henry.

I hate to tell you, but in any world of criticism there is abstract words used to define those who are able to consistently maintain art over a long time. “The Kings of Comedy,” “The Spirits of Rock,” both of these phrase mean that these people were able to become “Classic,” another technical word that means “maintaining value over a long period of time.” In all art there is a form of it, and a Gimmick King is no different. A Gimmick King is a person who knows how to balance gimmicks, and tastefully add on to gimmicks so that they still have the smooth flavor, while adding a little so not to trigger the “Oh, I’ve heard that one before,” reflex that is trained in every critic’s mind.

A true gimmick king never loses his novelty (his “gimmick”), and is able to make you genuinely laugh over and over for 10 – 20+ years. A “Gimmick King” is a person that has been listened to for a long time and has never lost his particular charm. Or as I already wrote

“If all the gimmicky people in the world were retards (Which It’s my supposition that yes they are), than these few and proud would be the idiot savants, who somehow have taken the tired out Gimmick humor and made it entertaining.”

Maybe I should have been more specific, but forgive me, I showed credit to my fellow man, and figure they understood “critic words,” like gimmicky.

Cause otherwise it’s just circular logic that means nothing.

Congratulations! You, without any help, have figured out the point of the entire blog. Have you honestly read any of my work? If so, have you not figured out that my articles are based in logical fallacies? (For example: “…that this a hate speech satire. Mean to be read with a grain of salt, and a good humor. How does this differ from my open hate for disclaimers? Well, Because go fuck yourself.” Featured in my Bustgunner comments)

Or just a made up term in order to excuse your giving a pass to some comedians you like while condemning the rest

Ding Ding ding.

We have a winner! I did make up the word. The thing is I gave examples, used it in a context, and short of giving it a dictionary definition, I made it as easy as possible for the people reading it to infer the meaning. You know, infer, that thing they taught you in kindergarten? (I should know, I took it twice) The fact is I assigned a new phrase for these people to better define them because, “The guys who did funny gimmicks for a really, really long time and stayed funny all that time. While I watched blissfully wasting my life away between “Studying, in my room,” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue into liquid gold.

I’m sorry, I was weak and resorted to shortening a phrase to save me time, and not take yours. You caught me.

The next two I’m going to talk about together.

This guy watches something and gives his opinions, but his analysis is way too generalized.

I have to say that you are right on the money. Seriously, no argument, that is exactly what I do and I’m glad you’re caught up. However I am a bit perplexed, because the dictionary definition of “critic” includes the following:

“…the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.” and “one given to harsh or captious judgement.”

At this point you might as well just call me critical.

So, in essence, since comedy is completely subjective (as in: I like good comedy, like satire and ironic comedy, whereas you like PTAS), I don’t think I can give much more than my opinion before I start arbitrarily assigning numbers to how much it made me shit my pants. The problem with that approach is that all comedy has its own distinct merits, and to make a copy/paste system for the entire beast would miss out on the nuances of other abridged series, or alas other comedies. I prefer the general opinionated approach because talking about “did I like it,” is really the only valid fact of the day.

Here is an exercise, find a good comedy reviewer and look at his site. First you’ll find that rarely do they actually go in piece by piece, but rather they give a small overview of what it is, and judge it on its merits (vaguely, I might add). Sometimes reviewers will even skip part 1, because we can reasonably assume our target audience knows what we’re talking about.

So, all this business about not being specific enough, you have any advice on how I might accomplish this? Because honestly I’m lost.

Also, I’d like to say, did you read your statement before you posted this sentence? Your post was nothing if it wasn’t riddled with generalities and opinions. About halfway through your post you should have figured out: when criticizing a person of their merits, you’re going to come off as general, because specificities make you come off as unoriginal. When trying to give reviews, and still trying to stay “somewhat” original, you have to skate the lines of generality because, save directly quoting the show, there’s not much you can specifically add to what they did well. Then you’re permanently stuck in this role about describing how the writing/show flowed, talking about editing, and giving a summation of whether or not you (in your own opinion, because if you can control other’s opinion… then call me, I’d like to learn that trick) liked what you saw and are you willing to endorse it.

And then of course there’s…

It’s almost as if he saw only a few episodes of the show, and because he based his entire opinion off of that

Do you know exactly how much I wish you were right? Unfortunately, before I ever consider reviewing anything, I have to swear to waste my time (get it?) and watch it in full. Now, in some series, this is a pleasure (such as YGOTAS), in some… Well this is torture (such as Bustgunner). But, I can’t really complain, because I watch them on my own volition… Unless of course I have my own blog, then I can bitch to my heart’s content.

A good critic will bring up a point that one hadn’t realized or thought of himself (or herself).

This one made my brain hurt a little bit. So, I’m supposed to come up with an opinion that nobody else in the world has thought up themselves…Let’s excuse the mindboggling logistics of that and focus on the fact that your initial problem with my review is that my first impression was that it was gimmicky. An opinion that I have yet to hear repeated anywhere else…

My second point was that, despite that initial flaw, I liked it. I don’t know how I can express that opinion any better. Maybe I could have just skipped it and gone onto something really awful (I’m looking at you, The Official Deathnote Abridged), and just continued my flame war on the internet, but as the bravest man in the entire abridgedfanboy universe, pointed out: I have no credibility if I don’t say what is good, as well as what is bad.

Like I said, we need a good abridged critic. But this guy is SO NOT IT.

Alright, I’m just going to answer in the same way as I answer anybody who doesn’t like my critique or comedy. Now pay attention here, because I don’t want to repeat this. If you don’t like my comedy, than I’m not writing it for you (and I encourage all abridgers to hold this same attitude). If you don’t like my review, that’s fine. I’m glad to have your criticism, and you can come on any time {There’s my minimum 1 dick joke per article} you like and tell me. But don’t think I could give a shit less, I write this review for anyone who enjoys this kind of comedy and obviously somebody likes my comedy, or else the Skwib wouldn’t have linked me (sucker), or Paradox wouldn’t have raised attention to it (double sucker).

Thank You Honorary Member for reading my post, I’m always glad to get the feedback from my fans.

Next up!: The appropriately named Remix, who starts out with,

“LK is too gimmicky.”

Oh, then maybe he should try an incredibly abrasive style and shoehorning as many sh*tty analogies into his work as possible. Not that it works for Mr. Aperio Contra himself, but hey, maybe his reviews might prove useful for something besides living up to its namesake.

This AC guy is as useful as a eunuch in a whorehouse.

Ok, his first originally typed words were the exact words given by HonoraryMember just five posts beforehand, so he loses five points off the bat because he obviously can’t figure out the whole scroll wheel feature thing on his mouse. Then he goes on assuming that I want all comedy to be like me…

I’m struggling to figure out exactly how you came to the conclusion that I want everybody to use my abrasive style (besides the fact that it’s the best). The fact is that all styles have their merits, and to ask all styles to be like mine would ruin my genre, while neglecting all others. Before you know it, we’re left spiraling down the porcelain tube, where all comedies become dick and fart jokes, while forgetting all other styles to watch Ass: The Movie.

Oh! And by the way: congratulations! You have figured out the first joke you were supposed to figure out when clicking upon the site. “Oh! Living up to its namesake! The Wasted Time! How Clever!” I exclaim when reading this. Well, now that you have learned the basics of the Wasted Time, I now invite you to go a step further and read one of my posts. There you will find plenty of clever and ironic names just waiting for you to find them. Please tell me when you have gotten all of the jokes on the site (for that will have earned you some loot).

As for your last comment: out of curiosity, I ran a Google search on it. And you’ll be glad to know that you picked the right handle in Remix. Because at 5,370 results, having something to do with “eunuchs” and “whorehouses,” I am left believing that a remix is the sum of your creative talents.

Directly under Remix, is a poster called Chrome (seriously, what’s it with people’s handles being the taglines of albums? What’s next, LP?).

This.

All his stuff comes across like he’s trying too hard to be funny, and failing miserably. I’m not a fan of that rambling, loquacious style either – too many words, not enough content.

And that abridged video ain’t really all that bad compared to some of the stuff out there. I don’t see why it got so much attention, it’s as base an effort as most stuff.

Including apparently his post.

Protip: if you’re going to moan about how much effort is put into where, you might want to put some effort in the post that you are kvetching in. What abridged series did you not agree with me on? You seriously never mention a fucking word about it!

And as to your initial point: let me just point out

I’m not a fan of that rambling, loquacious style either – too many words, not enough content.

BAM! Using my Holmsian deduction skills, I think I just solved the case and figured out why you don’t like it. By your own admission, you do not like the particular style of comedy I use (apparently because I use words). So maybe that’s why you didn’t think of it as good.

Not because I’m trying too hard… while apparently not trying hard enough at the same time…

Next up! We find another appropriately named poster: XeroStyle. Who in a strike of brilliance decided to post the following line:

Bad comedies are the worst. You can’t even laugh at how bad they are.

I agree totally, but before we get into it, let’s look at Xero(0)Style’s’ profile picture:

This, my friends, is Tim, or Maybe Eric (Or it could be one of the other guys, I just don’t care), from Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job! or as it’s known in my house: “Who the fuck would watch this shit?” Tim an Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job! Is about what would happen if two guys played out every scene from Kids in the Hall, but made it somehow gayer.

So, to ZeroSubstance XeroStyle, all I have to say is that I am Glad that I am considered bad comedy in your book, so long as I never have to be associated with Tim and Eric.

So thank you X(Z)eroStyle, for teaching us all that if you don’t have anything creative to add you can always smile and

Next on the chooping bloock is Roooster. Who writes.

Didn’t eunuchs only exist because of their usefulness in whorehouses/concubine dwellings? I thought their primary function was to help run the place without giving into the temptation of sleeping around…

Ok, that was pretty funny…

Moving on,

I guess, considering that every other post I pretty much already answered, this concludes my fan mail from PTAS. I must express a thank you to all of my fans. All of your support has been very helpful, and I look forward to comments like this (Where else am I going to get my material?) The lesson here is if you don’t like something you should take a page out of the book of the bravest man in the entire abridged fanboy universe and just post it on his site instead of hiding in a forum.

Unless of course you have your own blog, then you can just post it there and hide safely in your den because double standards kick ass.

BUT WAIT! Hold on! Let it never be said I never listen to my fans! Since everybody seemed to have missed the point entirely in my original post, I feel obligated to drop my sack {and one dick joke to grow on} on this subject again. So I vow this day that I will work tirelessly (and effortlessly) to write my very first Wasted Time Rereview. In which I will tackled the points left out in my last post. (things like… you know… “He genuinely funny and I look forward to everything I see him in… finally we have somebody who can simply make you laugh.” … and stuff like that.)

… I’ll get to it next week.

Jack “A.C.” Shawhan is a satire writer, critic and Jabberwocky for The Wasted Time. Self proclaimed: “Jester to the for the monarchs of the “Who The Hell Cares?” Empire,” A.C. authors a weekly article imaginatively called: The Wasted Time Review, a critical review on the comedic idiot savants that we call internet publishers. Apart from picking every sordid detail out of what is splattered on the net and dangling perfection beyond the reach of all who wish to approach it, Jack “Aperio Contra” Shawhan is a writer with a long background in literary history and comedy.

I’ve gotta be honest… I’ve never watched the original Avatar: The Last Airbender. Never, not once. If I have ever seen this show before, it was quite on accident, and I was blissfully unaware of exactly what was going on. It’s not anything against the show; it’s just that I morally can’t watch Nickelodeon anymore, due to their appalling trade of not releasing anything good since Angry Beavers.

I do have a friend who has watched it, so I went to his house, waded through the sea of his kid’s toys, to interrupt his daily routine of illegally downloading old episodes of V. I asked him what he thought of Avatar: The Last Airblower and he said it was ok, until he found himself sitting with his wife’s 13 year old niece whom immediately exclaimed her love of the show. To which he reacted by immediately turning it off, and smoking the necessary amount of… cigarettes… in order to completely wipe it from his memory. Being of no help to me, I immediately called him an oompa loompa and left because I was tired of looking at him.

So I went on a quest, searching hill and dale and hitting the books as hard as I could to figure everything out about Avatar: The One Without James Cameron’s Dick On It that I could, short of having to watch it (that is, I typed it’s name into the Wikipedia Search Bar, and read half a paragraph of the article, then watched Avatar: The Abridged Series and filled in the rest).

Apparently the show revolves around a concept of elemental bending that’s totally not ripped off from almost every single anime with any reference to the goddamn four elements. The show follows Aang, an air bender comprised of equal parts Buddha, Jin from Yu Yu Hakusho, and Krillin. Aang is this world’s messianic figure known as the Avatar.

A word which quite obviously has a different meaning on their planet.

Aang is discovered by a Water Bender named Katara and her brother… hold on, I need to check something… Sokka! His name is Sokka!… Aang is discovered by a Water Bender named Katara and her brother Sokka, who is on a lovely stroll in the tundra when they discover Aang cryogenically frozen until the time in which Wesley Snipes breaks out of jail to perform Murder Death Kills on innocent civilians.

Katara proceeds to break Aang out of his prison with her staff, presumably because Water Bending can’t control water in a solid form. The iceberg breaks under the mighty force of a stick and, in a convenient plot forming twist, produces a pillar of light so that the neighborhood Fire Bending Search Party (local 202), whom is trying to hunt and kill the Avatar, is immediately made aware of his birth (or rebirth, rather) into the world. Aang then leaps from the pillar of light, freed from his 100 year cryo-stasis, where upon he hops onto Falcor’s back, because having a luck dragon with you is the only way to go on a quest.

Ok, maybe not Falcor… Falcor’s retarded cousin, Joe.

As for the rest it… well I’m already bored with this original show overview, so onto the good bits.

First, a small reference point, after my last two reviews (yes, my throat is recovering nicely, but my lips are still a bit chapped), I wanted to pick something that I knew I would hate. Not that I particularly like watching bad shows, mind you. I just have a reputation to live up to, and the Biggest Asshole In The Universe award isn’t going to win itself.

When I first started watching Avatar: The Abridged Series I noticed that the editing was a little… off. Well, not to say off… more never was fucking on in the first place. Sure GanXingba’s choice of dialogue was almost intentionally made to slap video/audio continuity in the face, the background noise was nonexistence, but at least the lip syncing was right on… half the time.

When noticing these glaring flaws I began to giggle with glee, showing the psychological profile as a psychotic kid with a pinned frog. I became so excited at the prospect of tearing it limb from limb that I began right then to equip my arsenal at that very instant.

I was ready to start what would be the beginning of the worst review this site has ever done, but then halfway through the first episode a noise escaped my lips. “No… That couldn’t have been a chuckle,” I said in my own disillusionment. Convincing myself it was just a stutter as I let out a sigh, so I kept watching. And then it happened again.

Ok, maybe it was a fluke… because there was no way that this was actually making me laugh. But time after time, the vocal presentation overwhelmed the visual piece of… art… and forced a chuckle, or a semi-amused “Wh-what?” through my teeth so hard that I have recently switched to prosthetics.

But The Pirate Teeth Model Was Fucking Worth It.

GanXingba takes the Daphne approach to comedy, by somehow wandering off, slipping and falling into something funny almost as a plot device for the show. But I really shouldn’t complain, seeing as, more often than not, what is squeezed out of GanXingba’s buttocks is generally pretty funny, albeit the fact that he holds on to a joke longer than ever necessary (like the optimist/skeptic bit).

Saying GanXingba’s editing is a little unfocused is like saying that I use just one or two too many analogies. Half the time the scene doesn’t make sense when played side by side with the dialogue. GanXingba’s criterion for two characters talking to each other is limited only to, “be them standing in the same scene? (MS Office, actual correction, which proves the MS Office grammar check is a pirate)” Which render’s most of the interpersonal dialogue in the show as awkward as the grade school proms, where you were forced to dance with Mary, the girl whose best physical feature was how her harelip divided her very mature mustache.

The show plays like Avatar: the Last Nickelodeon Gimmick (And this joke declared dead 3:01 am 12/11/2010) ran in fast forward. It’s almost like he had forgotten that he could literally do whatever he wanted, since he was the voice actor and the writer now, and instead of simply passing over the story, decided to cram as much Avatar back story as is legally allowed down the throats off all of his readers.

I made the mistake of trying to watch the first three episodes back to forth in one sitting. Three days and a bottle of Excedrin later, I have recovered from the subsequent headache that arose from every single bouncy scene that was flashed at me in the speed of old Pokemon show, (you know, before everyone got bitchy over a couple of seizures?)

See? She looks thoroughly entertained.

To GanXingba’s credit, this does get better toward the end. What doesn’t however is the audio/visual continuity. At one point, when the Fire General appears to fight Obi Wan Kenobi, at which point Obi cheeses it by lighting up like flash paper, and Aang is left to fight the Fire General. GanXingba’s voice of Aang then decides to try piss the fire general off by going on and on about muttonchops (which apparently is the worst possible insult in this series) while the video of Aang is left crunkin’ it up, and shakin’ his booty. While it was slightly amusing in its own right, I think that the whole bit would have done a whole lot better if it hadn’t been done.

The mood setting of the show is hurt slightly by there being absolutely no background noise. Sure he offers a couple musical gags, but beyond that it’s not even crickets. But considering the tempo of the show, the only appropriate background music would probably be the Benny Hill Theme Song. The end of each episode has a sound clip of another show or movie, a technique so suspiciously familiar, that I’m left thinking that Little Kuriboh is the only gag writer in the entire Abridged Universe.

The voice acting and caricaturing are all done very well and generally suite the situation in the show. GanXingba obviously inserts himself into the role of… hold on, I need to check something… Sokka! His name is Sokka!… GanXingba obviously inserts himself into the role of Sokka the most by making him the most reasoned person in the show, as to why he would do this I haven’t the foggiest, but then again, I never watched the original show.

GanXingba’s interpretation of Zuko was originally really annoying, but I get the impression that it really just fits Zuko too much (again, I’ve never watched the original show), so I’m willing to let the teenager whiney voice slide, if not only for the sake of caricaturization (using the art of caricature as a means of forming a parody character). GanXingba won my heart easily with setting Iroh as the snarky cynical Jewish man, making him effectively the funniest person in the series (I wonder why).

Takahata101 makes his contractual appearance in episode 8 (as part of article 302 of GanXingba’s deal with the devil), and a Deathnote reference appears almost directly following (as per article 303).

Avatar: The Abridged Series has one big strong point: It’s humor. And if you’re going to get something right in a Parody, the humor is a good place to start. The humor is at some points so subtle that they feel like gentle tickles up the back, and some points they hit you in the face so hard you start to feel those tingles all over. If you aren’t the nerdiest of nerds, you might not get many of references, but the humor is solid there and the delivery was generally well timed.

If you’re unclear about how I feel the show, well… you wouldn’t be the only one. The critical side of me says that the show has far too much growing up to do before it can walk and talk with the other Abridged Series, but honestly for the young adult series that it is, it’s not all that bad of a show. I guess what I’m trying to squeeze out like an 8mm kidney stone is a half-hearted recommendation.

While it’s not the best thing on the planet there are certainly more wasted videos on YouTube then this, but I personally don’t know exactly how to feel about it. Every time I think I have a grip on the show, it slips out of my fingers and sails off straight into the sunset, without so much as a goodbye or a “thanks for having me.” Honestly the show is not something I’d get excited about and the show should consider itself lucky if I watch episode 11 or 12, but at least I never wanted to commit Hari Kari at any point through the series. .

So in essence: GanXingba, you sly bastard, you tricked me. I thought I was getting a good ol’ fashion bad show to widdle away at like an overzealous craftsman, and you confused me by cleverly hiding a decent one inside of it.

The only problem is that by now I have built up a tolerance to Excedrin.

Jack “A.C.” Shawhan is a satire artist and self-proclaimed “Lord of all existence.” He is the founder and head writer of the Wasted Time, which is pretty much as big of an accomplishment as taking the world’s second largest turd, but he takes it anyway. Every week he features the Wasted Time review, a satire critique meant present the parts of the internet that are good, and to the parts of the internet that aren’t he kicks them square in the nuts.